


evolve

by SHSLdiva



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 08:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHSLdiva/pseuds/SHSLdiva
Summary: eliot has a hard time dealing with his memories of his time in fillory with quentin.





	evolve

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't finished a fanfic in two years but 3x05 made me feel so much that i had to. maybe i'll write more. maybe i won't.
> 
> apparently the notes on my last fanfic were "i haven't written a fanfic in two years." guess i'll be back in 2020. also i forgot how ao3 works. goddamn it.

They don’t talk about their time in Fillory. Every day the memories grow more distant, like a book you read when you were a kid but you can’t remember the name. It was them but not them. It was real but not real.  
  
But sometimes Eliot can see the longing in Quentin’s eyes; that ache of something missing that he can’t quite place. There was safety and warmth and love and god, they were _happy_. Never in his life has Eliot been happy.

There were so many things Eliot could never imagine himself doing, but growing old and dying with someone was the strangest one. He had always imagined the natural end of his life would be liver disease or an overdose at the party of a friend of a friend of a friend of someone whose last name he didn’t even know.

There is nothing in any universe that can take away that warmth, though. It crawls in his veins when he’s trying to sleep, and it sits in his lungs heavy so that he can’t breathe. He wants to forget Quentin’s skin and lips and the feeling of a home that he has never had before.

At night, he dreams fragments of their life together. He sees Quentin doubled over in grief, and he sees their son leaving the nest. He feels so much pride and love and he has never wanted kids before; never trusted himself to be a good father when he had never met a father who didn’t leave scars.

Had he been in love with Quentin before this? Sometimes those two lives got jumbled. Did it matter that it didn’t really happen? He wished he could separate them. He wished he could stop feeling Quentin in his bones.

They were fucked. They could only find comfort in each other, but being together ached in the most indescribable way. It was like they were lost in some stupid, tragic love story when they should’ve been lost in each other. They should’ve been some cheesy love song that got overplayed on the radio, but Eliot never got what he wanted.

It didn’t matter, though, because Quentin didn’t choose him.

They were stuck together, but Quentin didn’t choose that. He didn’t choose Eliot. Even when there were two people left in their universe, he didn’t choose Eliot. That revelation plays like a loop in Eliot’s head, and there isn’t a bottle deep enough for him to fall into. He isn’t the first choice, or even the second. 

So they don’t talk, because there is not a word in any language in any universe that can adequately express what they feel. Maybe it would be easier to just tell Quentin how much he needs him. Maybe it would be easier to say that without Quentin, he can’t remember how to breathe or how to sleep or even who he is.

Every second of every day, he feels his body falling apart and coming back together, the pieces in all the wrong places. He feels a lifetime’s worth of emotions in his chest and throat, choking him when he tries to even whisper out Quentin’s name. He feels the ghost of Quentin pressed against him, tastes his lips and his skin and it’s so sweet that everything else that passes through his lips tastes like ashes.

Quentin’s voice sounds like coming home, but it stabs him like a knife in his gut. How is it possible to love someone so much, yet not be able to stand being next to them? The universe owes them, but if there is anything they have learned, it’s that the universe doesn’t give a fuck.

There is no rhyme, no reason, no fate, no Karma; every being is made to suffer and Eliot is no longer used to suffering. That happiness is just a fragment of an echo of a memory that is slipping through his fingers more and more with each day, but his body is cold without it. There is a part of himself missing that he never knew he had, or was capable of having.

If he closes his eyes tight enough, sometimes he can imagine that Quentin is next to him. The warmth leaves as soon as it comes, but it’s okay. He’s never had anything to hold onto before. Nothing has ever hurt this much, but there is comfort in the fact that he could be more.

Eliot has always held on to emptiness like a life raft, because it was the only thing keeping him afloat, but there is a world out there in which he was happy and full. He never thought he’d wait for someone or hold onto hope, but Quentin has a way of changing the world just by showing up. Deep inside, Eliot knows that he will be happy as long as he’s near Quentin. He also knows that this feeling isn’t new, just pushed to the surface so that he can’t ignore it no matter how hard he tries.

Eliot is in love with Quentin fucking Coldwater. Of course he is. There is no one and nothing that makes more sense.


End file.
